Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Awakening
by Maileesaeya
Summary: In Cosmic Era 73, a mere two years of tenuous peace comes to an abrupt end after a series of misfortunes escalates global tensions back into full-scale war. Witnessing these events from the start, Irisa Wilder and Hikaru Kirishima find themselves fighting a battle to discover the true cause of the war, aided by the enigmatic Eliza Thompson and the mighty Cerberus Mercenary Fleet.


**At last! Proof to you all that no, I'm not dead. This story is something I've been toying with for the last few months, and I finally felt satisfied with this first chapter.  
**

**As I'm sure you noticed from the story summary, the basic premise is that someone takes over for Cagalli and Athrun as SEED Destiny kicks off. Of course, there are other changes to it; with me, when are their not? I'm not gonna dive into all the details of it, for reasons you should all come to recognize in relatively short order.**

**Anyways, I won't bore you all with talk up here; read the story and judge for yourselves. I hope my greater experience will make this more appealing and enjoyable for everyone.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam SEED/Destiny or any of the associated characters or mecha. I do not own Setsuna Kisaragi or Tomoyo Asahara (guess who does). I do claim ownership over Irisa Wilder, the rest of the Thompson Team, Alec Burnette, and pseudo-ownership of the original mecha that appear in this chapter.**

* * *

Phase One: The First Spark

October 2, C.E. 73

* * *

ZAFT _Nazca_-class Destroyer _Silver Dawn_, Flagship of the Thompson Team, Lunar Orbit

It was unusual, as vessels of its class went: the _Silver Dawn_ was, as its name suggested, a bright silver color with blue trim instead of the dull green-blue that was typical of most _Nazca_-class destroyers. It also had a reputation as the most powerful sub-capital ship of any nation: the _Silver Dawn_ had never taken a single hit despite being the second destroyer put in service by ZAFT and had downed plenty of enemy ships. However, its reputation within ZAFT also stemmed from its commanding officer, one of their most brilliant pilots and commanders.

"Everyone, quick! The Commander's going to duel Graham, Brera and Vice all at once!"

At those words from Mana Blair, the newest and youngest pilot on the team, the pilots lounge emptied quickly as everyone rushed to the observation deck, none of them wanting to miss what was about to happen.

The _Silver Dawn_ and its sister ship, the _Twilight Shadow_, were currently deployed to lunar orbit for two purposes: the first was to keep an eye on the Arzachel Lunar Base of the Atlantic Federation, one of ZAFT's greatest foes even in peacetime. The other was to test new mobile suit technologies, though those tests had already concluded and now the pilots simply dueled one another to keep sharp—and when the Commander, Graham Jameson, Brera Iversion or Vice Schulden dueled anyone, it tended to be a spectacle. Seeing all four of them go at it three-on-one against the Commander? The junior pilots wouldn't miss it without an emergency to address.

Outside, the fight was already under way—the Orthros beam cannon of Vice's Gunner ZAKU Warrior opened up with pinpoint accuracy that spoke volumes of his skill as a sniper, but of the three shots he took, only one actually found the target, only to be deflected by the shield of the prototype mobile suit Theia, piloted by Commander Thompson. The Theia returned fire with its beam rifle, driving Vice into an evasive pattern temporarily, but then Brera's Blaze ZAKU Warrior attacked the Theia from behind.

The Commander evaded Brera's fire, but before the Theia could bring its rifle to bear, Graham shot in and swung the Falx G7 beam axe of his Slash ZAKU Phantom at the Theia with enough force to cleave the prototype in two.

The Commander responded by igniting the beam saber built into the Theia's shield and raising it overhead to deflect the beam axe; meanwhile, two pods shot off of the Theia's backpack along with another two from its hips. The pods fired off their thrusters and shot off in pursuit of Brera and Vice, opening fire with their internal beam guns. As if to make a further point about how badly outmatched even the three veteran pilots were by their CO, the Theia's Providentia-00 backpack detached and twisted to bring its weapons to bear on Graham's ZAKU before firing off six Firefly missiles at near-point-blank range. Graham broke away and shot down the missiles with the Slash Wizard pack's beam gatlings, but he was now back in a disadvantageous position relative to the Commander, who took aim once more with the Theia's beam rifle.

The other pilots of the Thompson Team—all of them temporarily aboard the _Silver Dawn_ instead of divided between the two destroyers—reached the observation deck, Setsuna Kisaragi at the front with Mana at the back, half-dragged along by Tomoyo Asahara after the way the others had nearly bowled her over. Between the three were Asuka Strauss, Shinji Nakajima and Rei Nishimura, though the three were already pressing themselves past Setsuna to get a better look.

For all that the Commander had the three ZAKU pilots outmatched, it wasn't easy: all three were veteran pilots who'd fought in the last war and the prototype wasn't really all that higher of a spec than the ZAKUs—somewhat better mobility without its backpack, variable phase shift armor for anti-projectile defense, greater offensive power, but taken as a whole, not that much greater, with probably only about a thirty percent improvement over the Blaze ZAKU Phantom. Even still, the Commander was one of the best in ZAFT.

Even with the DRAGOON system remote weapon pods, the scales were tilted against the Theia—at least until a full barrage of every weapon on the prototype knocked Vice out of the battle with an almost dull finality as the green ZAKU was splattered with white paint from the dummy missiles. Shaking his head, Vice pulled away from the battle area.

"_Damn it,_" muttered Graham. "_Brera, focus on the DRAGOONs! I'll keep the Commander busy!_"

"_Well, if you really think you can fight the Paladin solo…_"

Graham's only response was to laugh, though whether because he thought the notion was absurd or the question silly Brera did not know.

Regardless, Brera turned his attention to the four DRAGOON pods of the Theia, taking aim with his beam rifle and the missiles of his Blaze Wizard backpack, but even for someone as good as him, trying to properly track the fast moving targets was no easy task, especially with the way the Commander kept them coming from different directions, never letting them cluster up.

Meanwhile, Graham once again attempted to move into close-quarters with the Theia, only to be warded off by the beam guns mounted in the prototype's shield. The Commander took aim with the Theia's beam rifle and opened fire, forcing Graham to defend with one of his shoulder-mounted shields.

"_Enough,_" said the Commander suddenly, calling the DRAGOONs off their attack on Brera.

"_Huh? Commander, is something wrong?_"

"_I'm not sure… we're returning to the ship._"

As the Theia, ZAKU Phantom and ZAKU Warrior turned to follow Vice back to the _Silver Dawn_, the Theia pilot, Commander Eliza Thompson, leaned back in her seat.

"What was that…?" she murmured to herself. "All of a sudden…" She shook her head, hoping to clear away the bad feeling that had suddenly settled in the pit of her stomach.

But it just wouldn't leave, and it occurred to her, with a certain amount of dread, that the last time she'd felt like this had been in the build-up to the Bloody Valentine War…

* * *

Armory One, Lagrange Point 4

L4 was a location of strong orbital stability within the Earth Sphere. As such, it had been one of the most heavily colonized of the Lagrange Points, until the L4 Conflict of Cosmic Era 70 wrecked most of the colonies, and the entire region was abandoned as ZAFT, the military forces of the L5 colonies known as "PLANT", absconded with the resource asteroid Nova.

Around mid-Cosmic Era 72, newly-elected PLANT Chairman Gilbert Durandal convinced the PLANT Supreme Council to build an additional PLANT-type colony (which looked more or less like an oversized, floating hourglass), to be constructed at L4 as a kind of remote military outpost to keep an eye on the region, just in case any of the potentially hostile Earth nations began working on military projects in the region camouflaged as recolonization.

The new colony, dubbed Armory One, had been completed about a year later, though it had been habitable for several months before that. However, despite being in operation for several months and serving as the launching ground for ZAFT's new warship, the actual military forces there couldn't be considered much more than a token garrison… and even then, there were very few experienced soldiers there, less than a hundred all total who had actually fought in the war.

This inexperience, compounded with the fact that tomorrow was the launch ceremony with a lot of prep work still to be done, had resulted in a rather distinct lack of organization around the military sector hangars, with mechanics and agents of the Defense Committee shouting at pilots and other mechanics for their apparent inability to organize, leaving mobile suits sitting in the wrong areas (some of these weren't even supposed to be out of the hangars) and combat mobile suits armed to the teeth out in place of the ceremonial machines intended for use in the upcoming launch.

In the passenger seat of a jeep driving through this mess, a young woman watched all of this with a faint sigh. The girl was seventeen years old, stood five foot four and a half inches tall, had modest B-cup breasts but a thin waist and wide hips that gave her a formidable figure anyways, her hair was a faintly pink-tinted red, and her eyes were a soft blue tinted ever so slightly with violet. She currently wore a red ZAFT uniform, the mark of a top graduate of the ZAFT Military Academy, and she'd picked out the optional female variant with a pink miniskirt.

She was Lunamaria Hawke, a pilot assigned to the new ZAFT warship _Minerva_, and she was currently eyeing the chaos around her with an uncertain weariness. She watched as a GaZuOOT that shouldn't even be out was ordered taken back to the hangar, and overheard mechanics being dressed down for prepping combat BuCUEs instead of the ceremonial BuCUEs for deployment.

As she watched all this, the driver of the jeep she was in, Vino Dupre, let out a sudden cry of panic.

"Hold on!" he cried, spinning the wheel and maneuvering through the feet of a GINN that had just walked out from behind a wall. Lunamaria, who had been badly jostled in her seat, let out a sigh of relief when they were past the machine, letting go of her hair that she'd grabbed in her moment of shock and sitting up straight, glaring back at the GINN.

"What the hell?" she muttered. "This is a mess."

"It can't be helped," said Vino. "It's been awhile since we've done anything like this. Everybody's a rookie here, like us and the pilots."

"I suppose," said Luna slowly, "but even still, this is just ridiculous."

Vino shrugged in response.

* * *

Spaceport

Two individuals floated down a corridor, heading from their shuttle to the spaceport terminal with officials of the PLANT Supreme Council Defense Committee surrounding them, two ahead of them and two behind them.

"What do you think Hikaru?" asked the one floating slightly ahead, a girl in her late teens. She stood about five foot ten inches tall and had a formidable figure with large D-cup breasts, wide hips and a thin waist. She had strawberry blonde hair that floated all the way down to her hips and mismatched eyes, a green-blue right eye and silver left eye set in the face of an idol singer. She was casually dressed, with blue jeans and a black leather jacket over a sleeveless black shirt.

"I think you should've dressed more formally, Miss Wilder," said her companion, Hikaru Kirishima, a boy also in his late teens, standing about five foot eight inches tall with short, messy brown hair and dark violet eyes, handsome features and a slender, wiry frame. "It's unofficial, but we are meeting the Chairman of the Supreme Council." Though perhaps he was not one to talk—Hikaru was dressed just as casually, with sunglasses, blue jeans, a black t-shirt and a blue denim jacket… and unlike his companion, he was also armed with several well-concealed weapons.

He was her bodyguard after all.

"I'll never get used to hearing Miss Wilder from you," she said, "I miss the time when you would just call me Irisa."

Hikaru shrugged, and Irisa scowled in response.

"Anyways, I wasn't talking about that, and you know it," she continued. The two fell silent as they emerged into the main terminal, Irisa glancing down at four individuals in the terminal and Hikaru following her gaze seconds later. One was a blonde girl who looked remarkably similar to Cagalli Yula Athha, one was a green-haired boy, one was a blue-haired boy and the last was a black-haired girl with a few white streaks through her hair wearing sunglasses.

"Two of them," muttered Irisa, just barely loud enough for him to hear, "and there are another two somewhere else on the colony. You know what that means."

"Six in one location," said Hikaru quietly with a small nod. "Yeah, I know—something's going to happen soon."

"You ready?" asked Irisa lowly, shifting her body to bring herself more in line with her companion.

"Do birds sing?" he asked by way of retort; Irisa giggled slightly at that—of course he was ready. With a bit of creativity, he could probably take out the entire ZAFT force on the colony if she wanted him to; how long it would take and whether or not he could do it before reinforcements showed up would depend entirely on what sort of equipment he could get his hands on, but then again, in his line of work, it took that kind of skill to survive the dangerous situations he could find himself in.

A moment later and the entourage settled into the .9 gees of gravity of the PLANT hub's rotation zone, and from there to the more uncomfortable gravity of the core hub, from which they boarded a lift that would take them down to the colony proper. As they began their descent, the discomfort quickly began to ease.

"So, that's it," said Irisa, looking out over the cityscape once it became visible, mismatched eyes focused on the warship in the distance. "The new ZAFT warship… it looks like a cross between the _Archangel_ and _Eternal_." Hikaru nodded in agreement, also focusing on the ship, one hand in the pocket of his jacket.

"That's something many people have said," said one of the Defense Committee officials, "however, its design was inspired by Evidence 01."

"Perhaps we'll see more of that after the launch ceremony tomorrow, assuming we're still here," said Irisa, glancing at Hikaru. He nodded slightly, and the two moved back to the center of the elevator, Irisa sitting down with a faint sigh.

* * *

Armory One Shopping District

The shopping district was the only civilian district on the so-called "first continent" of Armory One.

Well, that wasn't entirely true, but it was the only one that had pretty much nothing to do with the militaristic nature of the outpost.

The reason the shopping district was on this side of the PLANT instead of the other, more residential disk—the "second continent"—was for ease of access by anyone who felt like getting out a little while on break.

Not that there were very many soldiers who got out so easy today of all days; the shopping district was pretty sparse.

That suited Sarah Harcourt just fine though.

The young teenager, only fifteen despite having the body language of an adult, stood five foot three inches, shorter than even the shortest of her traveling companions. Her figure was modest, her white-streaked black hair was neck-length, and her outfit was a simple black shirt, black jacket, black pants, black boots and sunglasses; she looked almost like she belonged to some stereotypical government secret agency.

In a way, she did.

Despite her age, Sarah was a junior grade lieutenant in the Earth Force's 81st Autonomous Mobile Corps, "Phantom Pain", an officially non-existent unit that operated at the beck and call of the terrorist organization Blue Cosmos. This was because she was the last surviving subject of one of several Blue Cosmos child super-soldier programs; her intelligence, aggressiveness and talent had made her ideal to command the three survivors of a separate, but similar program.

Their names were Sting Oakley, Auel Neider and Stella Loussier. Sting, while not the oldest, was the most mature; he stood five foot seven inches, had sharp facial features, grey eyes and green hair (this last was a result of the experiments, so as to let him blend in among Coordinators). Auel, the youngest, had a short temper and little self-control; he was five foot five inches tall, had boyish facial features, green eyes and aqua blue hair. Stella, actually the oldest of the group, was a bit kiddy and unfocused much of the time, with her "construction" leaving her with the personality of a ditzy, naïve child despite her hidden intelligence; she was five foot four, had a good figure with a generous chest for her height, innocent facial features, scarlet-tinted violet eyes (the violet was natural, surprisingly, but the extra scarlet tint was a result of the experiments) and slightly wavy blonde hair.

Despite having taken charge over them a few months ago, Sarah thought the three were a headache and a half to deal with, especially Stella. Sting wasn't so bad, and Auel was mostly easy to control, but Stella had the attention span of a squirrel sometimes, and it took a fair bit of self-control on Sarah's part to resist the urge to just kill the blonde and be done with it.

It seemed now was one of those times to test that patience, as Stella paused, glancing into a dress shop window. Sarah froze to a stop the instant she'd realized that Stella wasn't right on her tail, closing her eyes and willing herself to breathe calmly before she spun on her heel.

"Stella!" she said harshly. "What are you doing, we've got an _appointment_, remember?"

She tried not to catch too much attention. Really, she did, but that didn't mean her harsh tone had gone unnoticed by the bystanders.

However, it was only when Stella turned her head to look directly at Sarah that the young lieutenant began to feel nervous.

It was only there for a second, short enough that she almost thought she'd imagined it, but it kept cropping up: a dangerous glint in Stella's eyes, hinting at a cunning intellect buried inside her drug-addled brain, an almost predatory quality that said Sarah was nothing but a lamb staring into the eyes of a big bad wolf just waiting to tear her limb from limb.

This, perhaps more than anything, was why she hated Stella. It also made her just scared enough of the blonde to not do anything rash, which was sometimes necessary to resist the urge to kill her.

"I'm coming Sarah," said Stella softly, still sounding naïve. That was a small relief to Sarah; it wouldn't do to have Stella in a violent mood just yet.

But as Stella was walking over to them with her eyes turned submissively to the ground, someone walked out of an alley and right into her. The two nearly tumbled to the ground, but both regained their footing; unfortunately, the boy who'd come out of the alley had tried to grab hold of Stella to help her balance… and managed to accidentally grope her breasts.

Sarah groaned in irritation at that, burying her face in her hands and just turning to walk away.

"Sorry about that," said the boy. "Are you okay?"

Rather than answer, Stella elbowed the boy in the gut and ran off after Sarah, Sting and Auel following.

"Ugh… I deserved that," said the boy, Shinn Asuka, gripping his stomach where he'd been elbowed with both hands.

Shinn was a sixteen year old ZAFT pilot currently off-duty and trying to get a bit of last minute shopping done before he was shipped off to lunar orbit aboard the new warship as one of its pilots. He stood five foot six inches, had hard, but somewhat childish facial features, intense red eyes and messy black hair. His frame was surprisingly light despite rather intensive physical activity. He was currently dressed in beige pants and a white shirt with a loose gray sweater vest, and was, of course, deeply regretting walking out of the alley at that precise moment.

"Did you just cop a feel?" asked his friend, Yolant Kent, stepping out of the alleyway behind him. Yolant was ZAFT mechanic about Shinn's age of African descent with dark hair, skin and eyes. "You lucky little pervert."

"Nothing lucky about it," said Shinn, rubbing his stomach with a slight wince. "That girl's got a hell of an arm on her."

* * *

_Minerva_ Docking Area

Alec Burnette let out a faint sigh as he looked over the reports on the progress of the mobile suit transfers to the _Minerva_ and the maintenance of the four machines already aboard. He was a pilot, not a mechanical chief or anything remotely resembling a senior officer, but he was still in a position to view reports and give orders.

It helped, of course, that he'd seen mechanics-in-training back at the Academy who were three or more times as competent as these ostensibly fully trained incompetents. He tried to chalk it up to nervousness over the launch and the Chairman's unexpected arrival, but on some level, he just couldn't let it go.

Alec was seventeen years old and stood over six feet tall, with short brown hair and intense green eyes. He was clean-shaven, handsome and well-built, with a rigorous work-out regime. He wore the red uniform of a top ZAFT graduate.

Perhaps his irritation with the situation came from the fact that his life was riding on the quality of the machine at his control during combat, or maybe just his own drive to be the best. He knew he had a bad habit of demanding the same from others, and he'd never quite been able to shake it.

"Hey did you hear? They say some Orb big wig is meeting with the Chairman today," said one mechanic, drawing Alec's attention away from the report in his hands to a trio currently on break.

"Yeah, the rumors are that it's the Chief Representative herself," said the second mechanic. The third shook his head.

"I heard that it was their Chief Ambassador… Wildman or something like that?"

"Who cares who it is? What do you think they're talking about?"

Alec shook his head, turning his attention back to the report in hand, but the conversation still lingered in the back of his mind.

The Chairman was meeting with an Orb representative? That could only spell trouble in Alec's mind.

* * *

Armory One Command Tower  
Thirty minutes later

Escorted by the Defense Committee officials and with Hikaru practically glued to her side, Irisa stepped through the doors to the largest office of the military tower and spotted Supreme Council Chairman Gilbert Durandal standing next to the window-wall on the other side, apparently waiting for her.

"Ah, Ambassador Wilder; welcome," greeted Durandal politely, stepping forward to meet her halfway. "I apologize for making you come all the way out here for our meeting."

"Your apology is appreciated, but unnecessary Chairman," said Irisa as she shook Durandal's outstretched hand. "If anything, I should be making apologies for my Sovereign's insistence on a meeting as soon as possible despite your busy schedule."

"It was not too difficult," assured Durandal as the two moved to the couches in the room. "Though I admit, I was expecting Princess Cagalli herself to come, given the matter I was led to believe she wished to discuss."

"She wanted to," said Irisa as she sat down, Hikaru moving to stand directly behind her, "however, given the current political situation, everyone else thought it best to avoid a meeting between the leaders of our nations; it could give the wrong impression."

"I see," said Durandal, "and how are things in your country? As I understood it, many of the problems Orb had been experiencing since the war were resolved after the Princess became your Chief Representative."

"It's true that some have been resolved, but it's brought on many others," said Irisa with a faint sigh. "Chief Representative Athha has been distrustful of the Sahaku House ever since she learned of Morgenroete's behind the scenes dealing with the Atlantic Federation; as Morgenroete is Orb's primary military supplier, this has resulted in a certain schism. Then there's the Seirans, who are pushing for Orb to join the Earth Alliance in the hopes of avoiding a repeat of the Battle of Onogoro. The Yagami have been supportive of her, but there are rumors that the Daimon House's new Shinsei Industries subsidiary of their Foundation is actually for military research and development, which has made the Morgenroete situation worse. Meanwhile, the Atlantic Federation is breathing down our necks, even suggesting that we're secretly in collusion with ZAFT."

"Ah," murmured Durandal. "That makes sense; I assume the situation with the Atlantic Federation is the reason for Orb's requests that we cease our use of Orb technology for military purposes."

"Yes," said Irisa with another sigh. "The Chief Representative is under a lot of pressure at the moment, so I fear she is acting out of a measure of desperation. Both sides of this argument have their good points, but as ambassador, it is my duty to represent what I believe are the best interests of my nation."

"Then are you here to directly request that we cease our use of Orb technology?" questioned Durandal, eyes narrowing just a bit.

"I understand that it's a lot to ask," said Irisa softly. "Much of that technology is also being used by the entirety of the Earth Alliance, and the rest was mostly brought to you by emigrant Orb citizens. At the same time, the stability of my nation may be on the line; if you could at least be more… low-key about your use of your acquired technology and slow-down your implementation of our technology, focusing instead on your own impressive resources, it would be a tremendous help to Orb, and you would have our gratitude."

"I have no desire to see Orb burn," said Durandal; Hikaru's eyes narrowed at that statement. "I view Orb as a friend to the PLANTs, but what you're asking may similarly risk the safety of my own nation as well."

"Then we are at an impasse," said Irisa. She closed her eyes, sighing lightly, before looking out the window. "I realize this may require a good deal of your time Chairman, but I would like to request a treaty on this matter so that we can at least gain a political weapon to force the Atlantic Federation to ease off on our nation."

"Yes, of course," said Durandal, standing up. "Please, if you would follow me; perhaps an inspection of our exact use of Orb technology may help us to resolve this matter."

"Very well Chairman," said Irisa. "But I'll warn you right now that if you attempt to hide _anything_ from me… then these talks will go south very quickly."

* * *

Air Command District

Sarah stared at the hangars, apathy tinting her blood-red eyes behind her sunglasses as she waited for their ride to show up; her three subordinates surrounded her, Stella sitting on the ground with her legs curled up to her chest, Auel sprawled out on the grass, and Sting with his arms folded, shifting impatiently—Sarah could practically see the impatient foot-tapping he probably wanted to do.

For her own part, Sarah was forming strategies for the possibility that this might've been a trap; she had her orders and would carry them out, but that didn't mean she wouldn't be ready for treachery on the part of their treacherous mole.

She was just a lowly grunt and accepted that she wouldn't be let in on every secret. That didn't stop her from pondering how their superiors had come across information on ZAFT's new prototype mobile weapons, things for which she would expect security to be very, _very_ tight. That just made her more nervous, though it wouldn't stop her, especially given the sheer simplicity of the mission at its heart: get in, steal the prototypes, wreck the garrison and cause as much ruckus as possible, then get out of there.

With any luck, the little fire they started here would spread into all-out war.

At that moment, a jeep pulled around a bend in the road and stopped next to them.

"Get in," said the driver coolly. Sarah did as told, glancing at her subordinates as they followed her. She briefly glanced at the pile of weapons that were out of sight of most as the jeep began to move; there was more than enough firepower in that little pile for her team to do their jobs.

* * *

Elsewhere

Hikaru had come to the conclusion that he did not like Gilbert Durandal. He really wasn't sure what it was, but he had the distinct feeling that every other word out of Durandal's mouth was a lie, or that the different meaning attained from dropping a few words from his sentences might've been the real truth.

It was more than enough to make him antsy, and not just because he was paranoid; he'd had to stop several assassination attempts on Irisa in the last two or so years that he'd been her bodyguard, both because of her position as a major Orb ambassador with reportedly close ties to the Daimon House (as far as anyone could determine, she was a close friend of the deceased Daimon Princess), and because of her status as a major symbol of hope for Orb's recovering civilian populace.

He'd had years to hone his instincts, so he was certain Durandal didn't mean Irisa any harm, but he still sensed that the Chairman was hiding a lot from them and just putting on a mask. He suspected Irisa recognized that fact as well, but was focusing on being diplomatic. Part of Hikaru wondered if the Chairman saw through their masks as easily as they saw through his.

If so, they could be in a lot of trouble.

"As you can see," said Durandal, motioning to the mobile suits around them, "ZAFT has continued to maintain a high weapons production yield, primarily GuAIZ Rs, scrapping or selling our old GINNs as we produce more in order to stay within the confines of the Junius Treaty."

"Ah, yes, the Atlantic Federations political pet weapon for screwing over everyone except the other leading Alliance nations," said Irisa, grimacing in disgust. "I still can't believe that crazy treaty went through."

"Nevertheless, it did, and it leads to the situation we have here," replied Durandal smoothly. "After all, part of the treaty was the restoration and maintenance of Orb's neutrality, but its powerful technology means that smaller and more restricted nations like my own are desperate for what Orb has to offer."

Irisa came to a stop, slowly looking over the hangars and mobile suits. In her mind's eye, she saw these machines opening fire on herself, her ship, her friends, innocent civilians and the cities of Orb. It didn't take a lot of imagination; she'd seen all of that before, though it was Alliance machines as often as it was ZAFT machines that she'd seen performing those acts.

There was something else worrying her, nagging at the back of her skull, but she was having a bit of trouble placing it.

She was just opening her mouth to say something when her entire being suddenly screamed "_DANGER_" at her and Hikaru tackled her to the ground with a cry of "Get down!" just as alarms started echoing through the colony.

* * *

Armory One Hangar-6

Mechanics worked on three machines lying in cradles while soldiers armed with machineguns stood guard, though they all looked rather bored. None of them were expecting to actually be needed, and who could blame them?

Their complacency, however, had made it even easier for the four figures crouched in the shadows just outside the main hangar to remain unnoticed.

Sarah and her three subordinates were now quite well-armed; Auel and Sting were each carrying a pair of submachine guns, Stella was gripping a decidedly dangerous-looking curved knife and a ZAFT handgun with an extended magazine, while Sarah was armed with an assault rifle and two flash grenades. All of their weapons had been fitted with suppressors; while they wouldn't silence the sound of gunfire completely, there would still be a significant reduction in noise, and they wanted to keep this quiet until they were actually wrecking the colony.

The grenade wasn't noticed until it was too late, going off and blinding everyone inside for a few precious seconds.

The four infiltrators rushed in, opening fire on every living thing in sight: Sting and Auel were just letting loose full auto with their SMGs, while Stella leapt into the fray with all the grace of a dancer, gunning down the enemy soldiers and mechanics with precision fire from her handgun and slicing the throats on a few others with her knife. Sarah stayed a bit further back, firing her assault rifle in short bursts to take out anything she saw moving that wasn't one of her subordinates.

Before anyone had recovered from the blinding light of the flash grenade, pretty much everyone had been reduced to a bullet-ridden corpse, while a few instinctively struggled to staunch the blood flowing from their open throats before slowly going still. There might've been a few left alive, but all threats had been eliminated.

"You three, board the machines," said Sarah. "Disable the self-destruct and start wrecking the place. If there are any remaining machines as Captain Roanoke suspects, they'll send them to stop you and I'll try to seize one, but if I don't, bug out and get these machines back to the Captain. Understood?"

"Yes ma'am," replied the three before rushing to the cockpits. Sarah watched them go and dropped her spent rifle to the ground before procuring a pistol off one of the corpses.

A minute later, the three machines all stood up, activating their armor systems, and Sarah fled the hangar. As the three commandeered mobile suits began to move towards the main hangar doors, one injured ZAFT soldier who had managed to survive this long despite his fatal injuries dragged himself up onto a console and slammed a fist on the alarm, sending an alert siren echoing through the colony.

* * *

Outside

Hikaru had just finished knocking Irisa to the ground when beams suddenly exploded out of one of the ZAFT hangars, across the road and into a GINN and the hangar behind, destroying both in an impressive explosion that sent debris flying everywhere.

Hitting the ground roughly aside, Irisa was completely unscathed, but she couldn't really enjoy that since it was solely thanks to the fact that her best friend had taken a light rain of shrapnel from shielding her with his body.

"Hikaru!" cried Irisa in shock as her bodyguard picked himself up, ignoring the pain; it wasn't that bad, just some bumps and scratches, so he wasn't too worried, but Irisa would probably throw a hissy fit over his safety as soon as they were out of danger.

The two looked up, along with Durandal and the surrounding soldiers and officials, as three mobile suits emerged from Hangar 6 where the beams had originated, a black machine, a green machine and a blue machine.

"Stella, you take the left," ordered Sting in the green mobile suit in the middle. "Auel, you go right; I'll take the middle."

"_Understood,_" said his teammates as they moved to follow his orders, Stella's black mobile suit moving left as Auel took his blue machine to their right and Sting opened fire on the machines and hangars directly ahead.

"No way!" cried one ZAFT soldier with Durandal as he stared up at them. "Gaia, Chaos and Abyss?!"

"Those are Gundams," muttered Irisa as Hikaru helped her to her feet. "ZAFT's new prototypes…?"

Before their eyes, GuAIZ Rs and old GINNs rushed to intercept the stolen machines, but they were only coming two or three at a time and were obviously vastly technologically outmatched; compounding the situation, it was obvious that whoever were in the stolen machines were significantly better trained or more experienced then the rookies stationed at Armory One.

Missiles streaked down en masse from above, drawing all eyes skyward as six DINNs flew towards the stolen machines. Though Irisa wondered why aerial mobile suits were on a space colony in the first place, it seemed for a moment to almost everyone that the situation would be quickly brought under control.

But if these new machines were anything like the old Gundams they so closely resembled, then Irisa and Hikaru knew better; the DINNs were worthless against those machines, and would be even worse off against these new ones.

They were proven right only a moment later when the blue Abyss opened its fins and fired the weapons mounted within, blasting apart all six DINNs as the Chaos gunned down a GINN as a pilot was boarding it, and the Gaia ran a beam saber through the cockpit of a GuAIZ R.

The GINNs, DINNs and GuAIZ Rs—merely an easier to use but ultimately inferior update to the GuAIZ—were just too badly outmatched by these new machines. ZAFTs actions, retaining so many of their older machines and limiting their ability to produce more powerful ZAKUs if they wanted to hold to the treaty was smacking them in the face right now, and very hard, too.

"Someone escort the ambassador to a shelter immediately!" ordered Durandal, his voice barely heard over the sound of the explosions. Throwing a quick salute at the Chairman, one of the soldiers rushed to where Irisa and Hikaru were standing watching the Gundams wreak havoc, their faces almost eerily calm.

"This way please," said the soldier as he reached the two of them. They gave faint nods and he started off to the nearest shelter. However, they'd barely gotten past the first set of hangars when they came across the Gaia stabbing through another GuAIZ R. Irisa and Hikaru, trailing behind their guide by several feet, were able to duck into cover before the explosion came. The guide in question didn't make it though, and got caught in the explosion. Hikaru's sharp eyes just made out his body being flung through the air.

"Well, that makes things more difficult," said Hikaru as he and Irisa stood back up. "Too bad Hikari isn't here; she could probably get us to a shelter."

"Meh, my business with Durandal isn't done," said Irisa nonchalantly despite the chaos going on around them. "So, there are only three of them, and yes, it's those kids. What do you think the fourth one is waiting for?"

"No idea," admitted Hikaru, immediately understanding what she was talking about. "Do you think we should've told the Chairman there was a fourth infiltrator?" Irisa snorted.

"With what evidence? Unless you want to tell him about what I can do, all we can offer is my intuition. More importantly…" Another large explosion sounded, and a ZAKU Warrior crashed to the ground near them, apparently blasted out of one of the hangars, "… how long do you think it'll take you to finish them all off with just that hunk of junk over there?"

"Never flown one before," said Hikaru, "so… ten minutes, tops?" Irisa giggled at that. "Ah well, no time like the present to learn. Let's go!"

With that, Hikaru grabbed Irisa's hand and rushing over to the fallen ZAKU. The two quickly climbed to the cockpit of the prone machine and hopping inside.

* * *

The _Minerva_

"_Standby to launch,_" echoed the voice of Meyrin Hawke over the _Minerva_'s PA. "_Pilots to your machines; Impulse Sword Module selected._" As she spoke, the two pilots aboard the ship boarded their machines, one a full-blown mobile suit that was immediately loaded onto the port catapult, the other a compact fighter craft sitting on an elevator for the central catapult that began ascending once the pilot was aboard. "_Opening Silhouette Hangar 2; Silhouette Flyer, standby to launch._" Meyrin paused as a container opened and a backpack module attached to a small aircraft was loaded onto the _Minerva_'s central catapult beneath the fighter craft. "_Platform setup complete, central and port catapults online, now opening airtight shutters. Emergency crew, standby at launch stations. Raise central catapult to launch position. Core Splendor, Aether, all systems online, hatch opened, linear launch system engaged, initiate launch sequence. Catapult power level normal. Course clear, Core Splendor, Aether, go ahead and launch._"

There wasn't much in the way of fanfare or response. Instead, the two pilots simply launched in grim silence, shooting towards the battlefield as quickly as they could.

"_Catapult engaged,_" continued Meyrin after they'd cleared, "_please deploy Silhouette Flyer._" Following the Core Splendor's launch from the central catapult was the Silhouette Flyer and its accompanying backpack module. "_Now, deploy chest flyer._" Another object was loaded into the catapult and launched, this one looking like a mobile suit's torso, everything from the waist up. "_Deploy leg flyer._" A final object was loaded into the catapult and launched, this time the legs of a mobile suit.

* * *

Meanwhile

"Come on, let me pilot, _please _Hikaru? _Pretty _please, with a cherry on top?"

It was somewhat pointless though—Hikaru had already belted himself in and forced her to settle halfway behind the seat.

"Not a chance Miss Wilder," said Hikaru professionally as he started up the ZAKU and began reprogramming its OS. "I have one very simple job to do, and that's to make sure you're safe. That means no heroic theatrics or throwing ourselves into the fray for the fun of it."

"You're no fun," said Irisa with a small pout as she settled herself into the tight space partially behind the seat. "_Buuut_… we're not leaving yet."

Hikaru groaned slightly.

"Why not?" he asked.

"Because my business with the Chairman isn't finished," she explained. "He's gonna try to twist this situation to his favor in negotiations, but I intend to twist it in _my_ favor instead. That means I need to stay close to the Chairman, know what's going on… and have leverage from, say, my bodyguard cleaning up his garrison's mess."

"Is that an order?" asked Hikaru with a sigh as he finished fine-tuning the OS and the ZAKU began to stand, coming to life under his control with a subtle finesse it wouldn't normally have.

"Yes," she said simply. His only response was to sigh again.

Stella spotted the moving ZAKU almost immediately, and she frowned.

"What now?" she questioned, raising Gaia's rifle and firing. But the ZAKU dodged to its right just as she was beginning to squeeze the trigger, and her shot was a clean miss. "What?"

The ZAKU shifted oddly, changing its footing every second or so and twisting its arms as though stretching, completely bewildering Stella even as she snapped her rifle onto the ZAKU's new position and opened fire again. However, this time, the ZAKU dodged much more nimbly, but only shifted enough to suffer no ill effects from the heat wash of the beam, wasting no movement or energy; it was an odd way to dodge, and the difference from a moment ago left Stella even more bewildered.

The ZAKU did not let the opening from that brief second of hesitation go to waste, suddenly rushing forward and easily crouching under her clumsy instinctive shot before proceeding to slam its shield into the Gaia's torso, sending the black mobile suit tumbling back, losing its rifle in the process.

"Bastard," snarled Stella, drawing one of the Gaia's beam sabers and charging the ZAKU as Hikaru drew the beam tomahawk from his borrowed machine's shield.

The two clashed, hitting each other's shields. The ZAKU stumbled back slightly, and Stella lunged, swinging her saber. However, the ZAKU dodged back, then swung its tomahawk in, hitting the saber at an odd angle and knocking it from the Gaia's hand… then proceeding to quickly snatch the hilt out of the air with its free hand even as the saber shut down.

"Stella!" exclaimed Sting, landing the Chaos behind the ZAKU.

"Here comes Mr. Envy," remarked Hikaru nonchalantly as he swung his tomahawk at the black Gundam, driving it back, then blocked the green Gundam's newly drawn beam saber with his shield… before igniting his stolen beam saber and swinging it at the new assailant, sending the machine stumbling to the ground as the pilot overcompensated his attempt to dodge.

Before Hikaru could press the attack on either machine, several missiles suddenly slammed into the downed Chaos before a small fighter flew past them, catching everyone off-guard and bringing a momentary pause to the battle as the fighter quickly ascended to a higher altitude, where what appeared to be the legs and upper body of a mobile suit were waiting.

Curiously, none of the thieves attacked the apparently vulnerable fighter as it folded up and docked with the legs following after it, which spread apart as they did so. The reason they didn't was simple: this was, quite obviously, a new machine that they hadn't been told about, just as Neo and Sarah had predicted, and they wanted to give Sarah the chance to capture it.

Of course, as the leg-fighter combination flew forward to dock with the upper body ahead of it and formed a complete mobile suit, another reason came up: there was another mobile suit of the same design convention as their stolen prototypes just arriving to the battle, opening fire on the Abyss with a beam rifle, Auel dodging the blast with ease.

As the newcomer landed, a backpack detached from a small plane and flew forward to attach itself to the combining mobile suit, arming it with a pair of anti-ship swords about twelve meters long apiece.

The Impulse's Variable Phase Shift armor activated, turning it white and red as it drew the swords and landed in front of Hikaru's ZAKU. Meanwhile, the Aether's own VPS activated, turning the machine—nearly a double of the Impulse in frame other than the wings on its back and the cannons on its hips—from dull grey to white with a black torso and blue wings.

The Impulse combined its anti-ship swords into a double sword, spinning it about in a rather fancy showmanship display before settling into a more proper combat stance, wielding the double sword in both hands as the beam blades flashed to life.

Irisa and Hikaru quirked their eyebrows slightly at all this.

"Who's the idiot stupid enough to load into that multi-part hunk of junk?" questioned Irisa.

"A show-off, obviously," muttered Hikaru, thinking of the showy spinning swords and the pause in that combat stance that probably belonged in some overhyped action movie ripoff. "What do you think? Strike and Freedom ripoffs?"

"Looks like it," said Irisa. "Wonder what they're up to…"

"Why is this happening?" asked Shinn in the Impulse. "Are you trying to start another one? Another war?!"

Not waiting for a response, he charged at the Gaia, raising the combined Excaliburs overhead for a high power swing. In the Aether, Alec let out a small sigh at his teammate's impulsiveness, even as he leveled his rifle and opened fire on the Chaos.

"You're not getting away with this," he said lightly.

"Hey, Hikaru! Don't let them have all the fun."

"There's nothing 'fun' about this you sadist!"

"I am _not _a sadist, this is a blast and you know it! Now get into the fray!"

Hikaru sighed. "Fine, but we've _got_ to talk about you're passion for violent solutions," he said as he joined the attack.

* * *

**Author's Notes: I know, I know, it just seems like the old cliched Gundam-jack start to SEED Destiny. And, to be fair, it really is when you get down to it, but that's basically always gonna be the case in any story where Durandal is in a position of power since it's part of his plan to more or less conquer the Earth and enforce his Destiny Plan.  
**

**I added two extra ZAFT pilots/mecha and an extra Phantom Pain infiltrator, but the real alteration here is Irisa Wilder and Hikaru Kirishima replacing Cagalli and Athrun. Quite obviously, just the different personalities have immediate repercussions****—**where Cagalli was under severe pressure, emotional stress and a lingering hot-headed immaturity that practically turned her into a strawman backing Orb's political views, Irisa is calmer, more methodical, specifically trained to negotiate with manipulative masterminds like Durandal, and doesn't have all the pressure on her that Cagalli does. Then there's Hikaru, who clearly lacks a lot of the baggage and guilt that Athrun had, which makes sense given that unlike Athrun, Hikaru never "betrayed" his homeland or came into conflict with a genocidal maniac father. Among other things.

**I hope you all enjoyed the new characters and the small divergences. I'm sorry there isn't much difference yet, but there will be. In fact, around the time the war kicks in, I intend to start running the story halfway off the rails (again, there's only so much divergence when Durandal is in a position of power, because there's a specific way he _wants_ things to play out), with a certain amount more attention paid to things like logistics and competence. Namely, the mooks won't be incompetent buffoons who exist only to get shot down by named characters, and things will rarely be completely one-sided; it will be occasionally, but sometimes it just is that way even in real life.**

**Anyways, I won't make any promises about when the next chapter will come out; my life is pretty hectic and I'm attending college now, so I've got even less free time than usual. But I'll try to have the next chapter written and posted by Friday of next week.**

**Until then, please leave a review letting me know what you think, what you liked and disliked, and if you think I've improved at all. Just please, no flames.**

**Say****ō**nara.


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